In the Treatise: 321-2: "Observation of the behaviour of children and analytic investigation of neurotics ... shews that children originally devote their interest without any inhibition to the process of defaecation, and that it affords them pleasure to hold back their stools. The excrementa thus held back are really the first 'savings' of the growing being, and as such remain in a constant, unconscious inter-relationship with every bodily activity or mental striving that has anything to do with collecting, hoarding, and saving." Based on the Hungarian Ferenczi
Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901 michaelperelman.wordpress.com -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jim Devine Sent: Tuesday, May 20, 2008 11:24 AM To: Progressive Economics Subject: [Pen-l] Re: Keynes & Freud [was: monetary reform Ted, this says absolutely nothing against deLong's assertion that JMK's Tract on Monetary Reform was monetarist. After all, as I've said twice before, one can easily use superficial psychoanalysis to justify Patinkin's insertion of "the love of money" into individual utility functions as a way to reconcile monetarism with Walrasian general equilibrium. Ted, can you point to a _specific case_ where JMK used Freudian insights to create an economic theory that had implications that differed significantly from those of mainstream economics? How, for example, is anything in the GT dependent on Freudian microfoundations? Note: I'm hoping that you'll present something more than rhetorical references to the Biblical (pre-Freudian) concept of the "love of money." You write, for example, that JMK "invoked this psychological idea - the psychoanalytic idea of 'resistance' - to explain, among other things, inability to understand what ought to have been obvious features of his liquidity preference theory of interest." I couldn't find that in the on-line version of GT. Please explain the details of why any kind of psychoanalytic concept plays a crucial role in JMK's liquidity preference theory of interest. To my mind, a true Freudian vision of the human individual would see each of us as torn by all sorts of internal conflicts (Id vs. Ego vs. Superego, subconscious motives vs. conscious rationality, etc.) I don't know what kind of implications this would have for economics, exactly. I would guess that it suggests the need for social institutions to control and educate those dominated by their Ids, while stemming any negative impact these folks have on society. BTW, the invocation of Burke is revealing. It suggests that Freud didn't really add anything but some new vocabulary to JMK's thinking. A long time ago, Burke said a lot of the same things that Freud said, about the need for social control, etc. BTW2, JMK says that he rejected the idea that "the human race already consists of reliable, rational, decent people, influenced by truth and objective standards, who can be safely released from the outward restraints of convention and traditional standards and inflexible rules of conduct, and left, from now onwards, to their own sensible devices, pure motives and reliable intuitions of the good." This view of people being "reasonable" is quite different from the mainstream economists' vision of people as "rational." To them, one is "rational" by being a consistent goal-seeker with predetermined goals. One can be "rational" while being a sociopath. One can be "rational" and desire to hoard money even though it may be objectively irrational -- if one gets utility from holding money. So JMK could reject the idea that people are "reasonable" while still believing that we are "economically rational." Ted Winslow wrote: > One implication of the psychology Keynes adopted is that ways of thinking > about things can have unconscious anchors in less than fully mastered > instincts. This makes them immune to change through rational critique. It > also produces psychological "blindness," an incapacity fully to understand > the meaning of texts in which the underpinning framework of ideas is > inconsistent with the reader's own. > > Keynes was aware of this obstacle to rational persuasion. It's the implicit > point in his response to the questioner who asked why texts he had written > later in his life contained ideas inconsistent with earlier ones. Having > responded with the claim that, when persuaded that what he believed was > mistaken he changed his mind, he asked: "What do you do?" It also explains > his employment in his own writing, particularly in writing addressed to > economists, of the rhetorical device Freud called "poetical economy." > > He invoked this psychological idea - the psychoanalytic idea of "resistance" > - to explain, among other things, inability to understand what ought to have > been obvious features of his liquidity preference theory of interest. This > derived, he claimed, from a " a deep-seated obsession associating idle > balances ... with some aspect of current savings" (a claim consistent with > the fact that the version of "Post Keynesianism" dominant in France > misinterprets Keynes as a money crank "circuitist" theorist). (XIV p. 214 > [the roman numerals refer to volumes in Keynes's Collected Writings]) > > It's also the psychological point in his claim that Hayek had failed to > understand the argument in the Treatise on Money because of a lack of "good > will," a claim consistent with the claims he makes about Hayek's "sadistic > Puritanism," "remorseless logic," irrational "monetarism," etc. > > It's not inconsistent with Keynes's remark about changing his mind to > attribute a significant degree of continuity to his ideas through time. If, > for instance, he took in with his mother's milk (as Joan Robinson once > described his relation to Marshall's economics) Marshall's "internal > relations" conception of social interdependence and subsequently encountered > more cogent elaborations of it (such as the one found in A.N. Whitehead's > "process" metaphysics), the basic idea of such relations will be found, as > in fact it is, in his early writings (e.g. Indian Currency and Finance and > the Tract) as well as later ones, the treatment becoming more sophisticated > through time as his understanding of it changes and improves. > > In the case of his psychological ideas, he himself pointed to a major > discontinuity in a text that only a mind completely closed to his ideas > could dismiss as "rhetorical flourishes." That text is "My Early Beliefs," > one of the "two memoirs" Keynes's will instructed should be published after > his death. > > It's focused on his beliefs about the ultimate nature of the good life and, > related to this, his psychological beliefs. The change in the latter he > records is abandonment of the belief that "human nature is reasonable," that > > "the human race already consists of reliable, rational, decent people, > influenced by truth and objective standards, who can be safely released from > the outward restraints of convention and traditional standards and > inflexible rules of conduct, and left, from now onwards, to their own > sensible devices, pure motives and reliable intuitions of the good." (X 447) > > He now claims this belief was "disastrously mistaken." It ignored the fact > of "there being insane and irrational springs of wickedness in most men" so > that "civilisation was a thin and precarious crust erected by the > personality and the will of a very few, and only maintained by rules and > conventions skillfully put across and guilefully preserved." (X 447) > > The fact of irrationality meant that, to be realistic, the "discussion of > practical affairs" had to take account of the "deeper and blinder > passions"-the "vulgar passions." > > "Our [early Bloomsbury's] comments on life and affairs were bright and > amusing, but brittle-as I said of the conversation of Russell and myself > with Lawrence-because there was no solid diagnosis of human nature > underlying them. Bertie in particular sustained simultaneously a pair of > opinions ludicrously incompatible. He held that in fact human affairs were > carried on after a most irrational fashion, but that the remedy was quite > simple and easy, since all we had to do was to carry them on rationally. A > discussion of practical affairs on these lines was really very boring. And > a discussion of the human heart which ignored so many of its deeper and > blinder passions, both good and bad, was scarcely more interesting." (X 449) > > One explanation he offers for this mistaken early belief is that > "intellectually we were pre-Freudian." (X 448) > > In fact, this misrepresents his own even very early beliefs. In a 1904 > essay on Burke he accepts Burke's defense of "customary morals, conventions > and conventional wisdom," a defense based on the ground that "the part that > reason plays in motive is slight." > > So from very early on Keynes rejected the idea that "human nature is > reasonable." A key consequence of this for his economics is the role he > assigns to an irrational "love of money, and of gold in particular." As > I've been attempting to demonstrate, this is found in his economics from a > very early point, e.g. in the passage from Indian Currency and Finance I > quoted. > > What changes through time is his understanding of this irrational > psychology. These changes result largely from increased knowledge of > psychoanalysis following his initial encounter with it, through Bloomsbury, > in the period prior to 1919 (when he first makes significant analytical use > of it in the Economic Consequences of the Peace). > > In 1924 he told James Strachey (Bloomsbury's most important connection to > psychonalysis) that he was engaged in reading "the whole of [Freud's] > works." In 1929 he obtained from Strachey the writings on the "Freudian > theory of the love of money, and of gold in particular" listed in the > Treatise on Money footnote reference to that theory. (VI pp. 258-9) > > The result is that his treatment of the money motives in general and of the > irrational "love of money as a possession" in particular becomes an > increasingly sophisticated appropriation of psychoanalysis. I'll provide > some textual evidence of this in another post. > > Ted_______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
